Andres to retire after 32 seasons

By Pete Mollica

He’s been the basketball coach at Howland the last four years.

HOWLAND — Nobody had more passion or worked harder as a basketball coach than Don Andres.

That’s also what made it so difficult for the veteran coach to announce his retirement Friday.

For the past four seasons Andres has guided the Howland boys basketball team, but his coaching career goes back 32 years and this was the second time he headed up the Tigers’ program.

Andres, a Niles native and a former standout at both Niles High and Malone College, began his head coaching career at Warren JFK back in 1977.

“I’ve been doing this for a lot of years and I’ve really enjoyed working with all the outstanding young athletes that I’ve helped coach,” he added.

Andres spent five seasons with the Eagles before moving on to Howland High for the first time in 1982. After 10 seasons with the Tigers, he then took over the program at his alma mater, Niles where he coached for another 10 seasons.

He also spent three seasons coaching in Pennsylvania at Reynolds High School before returning to Ohio and Howland again in 2005 where he’s had two consecutive winning seasons with the Tigers.

Andres finished his career with 331 varsity wins, nine sectional titles and five league titles. He was named Trumbull County coach of the year nine times and district coach of the year on three occasions.

“I’m just going to relax and take it easy right now,” he added.

Andres has had quite a few outstanding teams over those 32 years of coaching.

“Probably two of the best teams I’ve ever had was my final season at Warren JFK when we finished 18-4 and just missed out going to state and then in the early 1980s at Howland when we were ranked as high as fourth in the state,” Andres said.

On an individual basis Andres named what he always felt were the five best players that he coached over those 32 seasons.

“I’ve had so many really good players, but my five best would probably be Roger Orsinella and Dave Barton from Kennedy, Jeff Walker and Mark Urbania at Howland and Deacon Jones at Reynolds,” he said. “Those were five very talented basketball players.”

As he announced his retirement on Friday, Andres said that he wanted to thank all of his devoted players, both current and past, along with his hard working coaching staff and his many avid fans and supporters.

“Thirty-two years is a long time and over those years you meet a lot of players, fans and supporters who have really been great to you and you want to thank them all,” he added. “I’ve really enjoyed it all.”

mollica@vindy.com